Essay: Evaluate Marx’s critique of capitalism, theory of alienation and Historical Materialism

Marx’s critiques of capitalism extend beyond merely an economic basis, rather encapsulating and influencing political and philosophical thought of German idealism. As a result, the influence of Marx should not be trivialised – his works influencing and shaping academia, revolutions and state regimes since their inception. Marx’s dialectical materialism “counters the theory of knowledge as vision with a theory of knowledge as production.” (Althusser & Balibar, 1970 [1965], p. 24) – it is a science in itself with internal methods of proof, and is thus distinct from the superstructure (Althusser & Balibar, 1970 [1965]). In this way, Marx is able to appropriate politics to social and economic power structures (Browning, 2015), and this is the foundation upon which his critique of capitalism rests.
This essay will therefore explain and critically evaluate, using academic sources, Marx’s critique of capitalism in analysing Marx’s early views on Capitalism and the State, Marx’s theory of alienation and finally considering Historical Materialism. Ultimately, this paper will posit that Marx’s critique of capitalism does hold water and can be seen to be of extensive influence in political, economic and philosophical thought.
The ‘young Marx’ had been relatively disregarded by academics until recently as his early work was considered ‘philosophical’, and not ‘scientific’ in economic terms as Das Kapital was, for example. The French sociologist Louis Althusser, however, notes that Marx’s works shouldn’t be read and interpreted as a coherent whole; rather, Marx’s work contains an ‘epistemological break’, representing a shift to a different theoretical framework, breaking with ideology to enter into the domain of science (Althusser & Balibar, 1970 [1965]). Therefore, it can be seen to be relevant to analyse both the ‘young’ and ‘mature’ Marx’s critiques of capitalism.
Marx asserts that capitalist civil society (the economy) is alienating in that it destroys the collective organisation of economic life and makes us a ‘plaything of alien powers’ (Marx, 1994). Free markets cause us to be subjected to powers outside of and seemingly independent of us, such as ‘the invisible hand’ (Smith, 1822 [1759]); which Marx describes as socially created powers. In this arrangement, the individual ‘… acts as a private individual, regards other men as a means, degrades himself into a means, and becomes the plaything of alien powers’ (Marx, 1994). In this way, individuals are pitted against each in a competitive economic system in which there must be winners and losers, by which competition isn’t only necessary, but inevitable. Marx further denounces capitalism in context of the state, which he also asserts as alienating in that the majority don’t participate in deliberation and decision-making; and ‘condemns class society, in which control over production, over political decision-making, and over intellectual norms is in the hands of a minority’ (Browning, 2015, p. 2). In this sense, capitalism is denounced in that it destroys the collective organisation of economic and social life and thus resulted in a class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat, which will be explored later in greater detail.
Therefore, the young Marx proposed democracy as the cure for such civil alienation. The participatory democratic control of all aspects of social life would abolish the capitalist split between polity and economy. That is to say, that democracy would restore collective decision-making and organisation in civil society, and would act as ‘the first step in the revolution by the working class … raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy’ (Marx & Engels, 1969 [1848], p. 26). In this way alienation, which will be discussed further, is cured by the realisation of freedom as well as emphasis on full freedoms of speech, press conviction and association; and ending descriptive exclusion and discrimination. In this way, capitalist civil society can be seen to be denounced from myriad positions by the ‘young Marx’ and as such ‘philosophical’ solutions, namely democracy, are proposed as a solution.
However, in critically evaluating the ‘young Marx’ and his early views on capitalism,
Marx also censures capitalism on grounds of four kinds of alienation. Marx describes the estrangement (Entfremdung) of human beings from features of their Gattungswesen (‘species-essence) due to being a mechanistic part of one of the stratified social classes within industrial society (Marx, 2009). Alienation from Product occurs in the capitalist processes of production, whereby we are continuously producing and reproducing two types of product at the same time: goods and services and the capitalist social relations that dominate us, in particular impersonal market forces, following the rules of the market and not our own ill, as our making capacity is limited to survival, through the means of wages. Therefore, the conditions of capitalism constitute the alienation of the human being from their creation (Marx, 1992 [1844]). This is based on Feuerbach’s humanism in which he stated that the idea of a supernatural God has estranged innate characteristics of human beings (Feuerbach, 1881 [1841]) and therefore humanity, rather than God or reason, should be the focus of both philosophy and social life (Feuerbach, 1986 [1843]). Feuerbach criticised Hegel’s assertion that mankind’s status could be reduced by making human beings the object of an abstract reason (Wood, 1990), and as such prominence is given to humanism and the self-alienation of proletarian labour.
Alienation from the Labour Process involves impersonal market forces alienating workers from their product. Commodification of the market leads to the ‘labour power’ (Marx, 2009) of the worker reduced to wages. Additionally, further alienation is imposed through the production subject as the worker has no control over their product. Therefore, labour is merely a means of survival and is not ‘voluntary but coerced’ (forced labour) (Marx, 2009). This leads to little psychological job satisfaction and a perpetuating cycle as one’s only means of survival in a capitalist economy is through monetary exchange and therefore the worker is bound by the capitalist’s demands for their own survival through wages.
Alienation of the worker from their Gattungswesen (species-essence or species-being) involves a dictation of relationships to people and activities which facilitate survival. Therefore, one’s consciousness isn’t determined individually, through an ability to shape the world ourselves; rather collectively in our necessity to survive, through wages in capitalist society, due to the commodification of one’s labour (Marx, 1992 [1844]). Finally, alienation of the worker from other workers occurs in capitalist society due to a competitive-labour market which extracts the maximum surplus value from workers in the form of capital. Social conflict is created due to competition between workers for ‘higher wages’ (Marx, 1992 [1844]), leading to a false consciousness, allowing the ideological control of the bourgeoisie to pervade through their cultural hegemony.
However in critically evaluating such claims, Althusser criticises Marx’s theory of alienation (Bullock & Trombley, 1999) in its ‘teleological’ approach of portraying the proletariat as the subject of history; an interpretation associated with Hegelian idealism of a ‘philosophy of the subject’, which Althusser denounced as a ‘bourgeois ideology of philosophy’. György Lukács clarifies in his republished 1967 work of History and Class Consciousness (Lukács, 1971) that Marx and Hegel’s concepts of alienation deviate. Whilst ‘Hegel and others equated alienation with objectification’ (Colletti, 1992, p. 17), Marx was the first to extricate the two meanings. Marx saw alienation as a diverged form of objectification, which arises under ‘man’s objectification of his natural powers’ (Colletti, 1992, p. 17). Therefore, whilst Althusser’s critique of Marx’s theory of alienation can be seen to be tenable in terms of its bourgeois philosophical association, Lukacs’ clarification of the distinction between Marxian and Hegelian thought provide a clarification and upholding of Marx’s theory.
Marx’s final critique of capitalism this essay will examine is historical materialism. Marx’s historical materialism asserts that the material conditions of society’s economic mode of production determine society’s organisation, including political structures and dialectics. Historical materialism represents work of the ‘mature Marx’ in regard to a divergence from philosophical ideals to a form of scientific socialism: consciousness arises from material conditions rather than ideas and thoughts. The ‘forces of production’, such as labour or machinery, determine the ‘relations of production’, the social relations required to carry out production of goods and the exchange of such goods (Marx, 1887 [1867]). In class societies there exists a division of labour whereby the class in ownership of the means of production (the bourgeoisie) controls that society and benefits from the surplus value generated by the proletariat (labouring class). In this way, there can be seen to exist an economic base upon which rests an ideological superstructure, constituting for example the state, political institutions and culture of a society of which is both influenced by, and influences, the economic base, of which takes primacy (Cohen, 1978). Eventually, the capitalist mode of production develops the forces of production in ways that enable and necessitate communism through a ‘revolution’ by which the augmentation of class consciousness through class conflict is realised and an organisation of the proletariat occurs (Marx & Engels, 1932 [1846]). In this way, the economic base changes and a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ exists whereby a revolutionary ruling class become the new superstructure.
However, in critically evaluating Marx’s theory of historical materialism, academics such as Karl Popper and Leszek Kołakowski have critiqued the theory on grounds that it is too broad and could account for any event (Popper, 1957). In this way, Popper ascribes historical materialism as unfalsifiable and as such pseudoscientific, a contradiction to Marx’s ‘epistemological break’ (Althusser & Balibar, 1970 [1965]) to scientific socialism. Additionally, Popper heeds against potential negative practical effects of the implementation of such historical materialistic ideas of unintended consequences that may arise due to the complexity of both societal structures and social interaction in terms of relations of production (Popper, 1957).
Therefore, this essay has demonstrated that Marx’s critique of capitalism is both comprehensive in terms of the range of negative effects, and verifiable in terms of peer-reviewed arguments based on both German idealism and philosophy, and scientific socialism. In this way, Marx’s critique of capitalism can be seen to be some of the most important work on political philosophy in terms of the extent and timescale of its existence. Additionally, Marx’s work has provided compelling and detailed contentions, as in so doing influencing not just socialist thought but also liberal, conservative and other critical theories; and as such this is where Marx’s critique of capitalism can be seen to be most influential.